Apolitical Pharmacology: From Altruism to Terrorism in Psychedelic Culture

During the LSD counterculture era of the 1960s, psychedelics became intertwined with left-wing politics. Anti-war protests, communal living, and a greater awareness of race, gender and class equality were a few of the ideological characteristics of the counterculture. The hippie lifestyle of the 1960s is also associated with a strong emphasis on personal freedom. Liberal and progressive ideas such as a relaxed attitude towards recreational drug use, nudity and sex were essential ingredients of the times. Today’s psychedelic movement is still very much linked to (and seen as a continuation of) the early counterculture. The latter has become the blueprint that most psychedelic manifestations follow. However, psychedelia past and present also consists of characters with conservative, right-wing, even far-right, views. In fact, the history of psychedelia actually features many people with political views that are the opposite of those expressed by the counterculture.

One who has written about conservative and right-wing currents in psychedelia is the British cultural historian Alan Piper. His 2015 monograph Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows: Ernst Jünger, Albert Hofmann and the Politics of Psychedelics (Invisible College Publishing) is focusing on this rarely discussed subject. The initial idea for my piece was to write a straightforward review of Piper’s essay. But his monograph made me want to expand on the subject and discuss the political currents in psychedelia in a more general sense, which of course also includes left-wing currents. So, instead of a review this piece soon evolved into a brief exposition of the many political shades of psychedelic culture. I will make several references to Piper’s monograph. Thus, one could, at least in part, regard this piece as a comment on his work.

Before delving into the many different characters and groups that populate the political landscape of psychedelic culture, I feel it is important to point out that my intention for writing this piece was not to favour one specific ideology, or to make one political current seem more sympathetic than another. Instead, this piece is an attempt at taking an honest and critical look at the political views of some of the key figures (and few of the lesser known ones) in the history of psychedelia. The piece also aims at discussing the way the psychedelic movement has gone from being a mostly left-wing culture to become a more right-wing and conservative phenomenon. Strangely, there is still a lot of misinformation spread about mind-expanding drugs, and what this rich and fascinating culture urgently needs is a more balanced understanding of the ways psychedelics actually affect their users.

In writing this article I hope to acknowledge the many different political views found among psychonauts. This also goes for the uncomfortable ones. At its most extreme, some users of psychedelics, as will be discussed shortly, harbour racist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic and homophobic views. Seeing that terrorism is such a central part of our times, the piece will also briefly discuss the terrorist acts that were carried out by two groups in psychedelia, namely the American radical left-wing group The Weather Underground and the religious sect Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. While the activities of the former are fairly well known, the Japanese sect is rarely mentioned when it comes to articles on psychedelic culture.

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Anyone with basic knowledge of the history of psychedelic culture knows that psychedelics have been used by all sorts of different people, for all sorts of different purposes. Yet there is a very persistent idea that psychedelics almost miraculously turn its users into more responsible, wiser, loving, caring, open-minded and tolerant individuals. While there is no arguing that psychedelics are incredibly powerful tools that can lead to great insights and influence people to make important decisions about their lives, having a psychedelic experience does not automatically lead to altruism, nonviolence, egalitarianism or any such things. And when it comes to politics, it appears that psychedelics very seldom change people’s political outlook. Again, this is not to say that these drugs cannot have great impact on its users. But it seems that changes usually occur on a more personal level, i.e., psychedelics may lead to important insights when it comes to ones social behaviour, relationships, lifestyle, ethics and career choices. Psychedelic substances may also help people give up destructive habits when it comes to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Still, despite their unique potential as therapeutic tools and addiction interrupters, psychedelics rarely make its users sympathetic to certain political views. And as this piece will show, psychonauts can be found pretty much anywhere on the political spectrum.

While the wealthy banker was immensely fascinated by psychoactive fungi, psychedelic mushrooms did not make him renounce capitalism.

Let us take a moment and consider a popular quote by Graham Hancock. According to the best-selling writer and journalist, “All politicians should be required to drink ayahuasca 10 times before taking office.”[1] Presumably, the idea here is that if only the right people in leading positions took the shamanic brew the world would become a better place. Admittedly, Hancock’s assertion is pretty catchy and it is easy to see why the quote is often shared on social media. Many people in the psychedelic movement are attracted to these kinds of quotes. After all, psychedelics are still illegal in most places in the world and users of these substances continue to be marginalised, questioned, and occasionally imprisoned. Therefore, quite a few people in psychedelic culture have a tendency to put critical thinking aside and instead focus on simplified narratives and statements such as the previously mentioned Hancock quote. However, Hancock and other similar advocates of psychedelics know perfectly well (or at least they should know) that there are numerous examples of people who have taken all sorts of psychedelics in a wide range doses (including “heroic” ones) who continue to stick to their political views. For example, American ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who made groundbreaking research on ayahuasca, was a royalist and a conservative “of the first order.”[2] It is also worth mentioning banker and amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson in this context. Besides being instrumental in bringing psilocybin mushrooms to the west through his seminal 1957 Life magazine article “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” Wasson was also vice president at the investment banking institution J.P. Morgan & Co. While it is clear that the wealthy banker was immensely fascinated by psychoactive fungi, psychedelic mushrooms did not make him renounce capitalism.

Another early psychedelic explorer with a right-wing outlook was William S. Burroughs. Conservatively dressed in suits and often wearing a homburg felt hat over his short hair, the legendary Beat writer hardly had the look of a hippie. Instead, Burroughs was one of those characters who came across as an old man already from an early age, and his political views matched his looks; unlike his socialist friend Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs (who is sometimes referred to as “the world’s first ayahuasca tourist”) was a dedicated anti-socialist. In essence, with the exception of Ginsberg none of these psychedelically experienced pioneers were drawn to left-wing or liberal politics.

Radical left-wing organisation the Weather Underground, originally called Weatherman, took its name from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

Graham Hancock is not the first to suggest that politicians should take a psychedelic. Already in 1967 the world-famous Beatle Paul McCartney made the following comment: “If the politicians would take LSD, there wouldn’t be any more war, poverty or famine.”[3] It is fascinating to think that not many years prior to McCartney’s statement, CIA experimented with LSD for the purpose of using the drug in interrogations and torture in its notorious mind control program Project MKUltra. From 1953 and onwards, LSD was administered – usually without the subjects knowledge – to various kinds of people including mental patients, prostitutes, prisoners, drug addicts, CIA employees and members of the general public. It is very likely that at least a portion of these people were traumatised by their experiences.[4]

Numerous claims have been made about what psychedelics can accomplish, and many statements about them have ranged from being slightly naive to being downright absurd. For example, the otherwise often brilliant Timothy Leary made several dubious assertions about psychedelic drugs. He once stated in an interview with Playboy magazine that LSD is a “cure for homosexuality.”[5] Despite taking copious amounts of acid at Millbrook it certainly did not make Leary’s colleague Richard Alpert a heterosexual. And psychedelics did not change the sexual preferences of poet Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs either. The same goes for the many gay people in the disco and early house music scenes of the seventies and eighties who were very much into LSD. If anything, it is more likely that psychedelics can help people find the courage to be open about their sexuality.

Since the psychedelic movement is to such a large degree shaped by the 1960s counterculture, let us now take a brief look at that era’s ideologies. A perfect example of a character whose ideological outlook was shaped by the early LSD counterculture was writer and orator Stephen Gaskin (1935-2014). In his book Monday Night Class, named after the legendary hippie meetings in late 1960s San Francisco, Gaskin is referring to his “simple Hippy values,” which were characterised by a belief in nonviolence, collectivity and social activism. “The most important thing to come out of the Monday Night Class meetings, and the glue that held us together, was a belief in the moral imperative toward altruism,”[6] he wrote. Gaskin went on to co-found the Farm, one of the largest communes in America. The commune started the relief and development organisation Plenty International, and in 1980 the organisation was given the Right Livelihood Award. Moreover, the members of the Farm were also pioneers when it came to vegan cooking, and even published their own vegetarian cookbooks. Vegetarianism was fairly common among hippies and is of course another characteristic of the LSD counterculture.

When discussing Stephen Gaskin it is easy to make the assumption that it was LSD that led him to his “Hippy values”: “When I got into psychedelics I found out what was wrong with what I was doing,”[7] he wrote. But even a devoted acidhead such as Gaskin knew that it took more than LSD to change people. In Monday Night Class he concluded that, “You can take any amount of psychedelics and not get spiritual.”[8] But why is it that many people who have had psychedelic experiences do not alter their political views? The American writer and editor Robert Forte suggests the following simple yet telling explanation: “It is set and setting, not pharmacology, that determines a drug’s effect.”[9]

Writer and orator Stephen Gaskin circa 1968 (photographer unknown).

Unlike today, psychedelic culture of the 1960s and early 1970s was very much soaked in politics, and in 1970, Timothy Leary even decided to run for governor of California against Ronald Reagan. According to Leary’s archivist Michael Horowitz, “The most radical proposal in his platform was legalising marijuana and taxing it appropriately. It was a lot like the model adopted by Colorado and Washington 45 years later.”[10] Leary’s decision to become a politician was seen as a stunt and was met with mixed reactions by the counterculture. Incidentally, John Lennon, who defined himself as a socialist, wrote Leary’s campaign song “Come Together, Join the Party.” It was later reworked and given its shorter title “Come Together,” which became a classic Beatles song. Interestingly, only a year later Lennon had detached himself completely from the LSD counterculture and seemed to have little respect for Leary’s work. Years of intense tripping carried out with little respect for the drug had taken its toll on Lennon. “I got the message that I should destroy my ego and I did, you know. I was reading that stupid book of Leary’s; we were going through a whole game that everybody went through, and I destroyed myself,”[11] Lennon said in a 1971 Rolling Stone interview with Jann Wenner.

It is easy to see why Lennon eventually gave up LSD. Needless to say, irresponsible long-term use of mind-expanding drugs has its price. In the case of Lennon, he seemed to blame psychedelic culture as a whole instead of acknowledging his own destructive behaviour. If used correctly, LSD does not “destroy” the ego. Instead, the drug may lead to brief passages of ego loss (aka “ego death”) where one’s identity dissolves. These passages are often very transformative and may have great value if experienced under the right circumstances. Obviously, such extreme states should not be experienced on a daily basis. If we can learn anything from the most frequent users of LSD during the hippie era, this was an important lesson.

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Most people who use psychedelics would probably say that being a white supremacist or racist is completely incompatible with taking psychedelics. However, even though they are presumably rare, some people in psychedelic culture actually do have racist views. The respected and celebrated lyricist and seasoned psychonaut Tommy Hall of the legendary psychedelic rock band The 13th Floor Elevators made the following statement in a 2009 article in SF Weekly: “The white consciousness is the most evolved. The blacks aren’t as evolved as we are.” The legendary musician also harbours homophobic views and according to the article he often rants about a “fag agenda.” Interestingly, despite the fact that most of his fans in the sixties came from the counterculture, Hall actually hates hippies: “They were out there throwing bombs. You can’t blame Nixon for cracking down.”[12] Hall’s prejudice views no doubt cast a dark shadow on his work as a lyricist for one of psychedelic culture’s most seminal rock bands.

The racist views of Tommy Hall echo those of the Neo-American Church. Founded in 1964 by former school psychologist Arthur Kleps, the church was loosely modelled after the Native American Church. The Neo-American church used psychedelics such as peyote and LSD as its sacraments. Described by Timothy Leary as a “mad monk,” Kleps lived for a year at the Millbrook estate before the commune was dissolved in 1968. While at Millbrook, Kleps underwent a mystical experience after having been dosed with a large amount of LSD. Even so, “The Chief Boo Hoo” was accused of having anti-Semitic tendencies and according to his biography at Erowid he was at one point kicked out of the Netherlands on this charge.[13]

In a 2002 article titled “Entheogenic Sects and Psychedelic Religions,” published in a MAPS newsletter, its author R. Stuart brings up the church’s outright anti-Semitic views. For example, their website at the time stated that the Holocaust was a hoax. It also contained anti-Semitic rants about how the “parasitic” Jews have seized control of the American media.[14] The Neo-American Church appears to be still active. Nowadays known as the Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church, they continue to believe in the use of psychedelics, and new members must subscribe to three principles of which the first starts with the following statement: “The psychedelic substances, such as cannabis and LSD, are religious sacraments since their ingestion encourages Enlightenment.”[15] Clearly, though, using psychedelics is no antidote for anti-Semitism.

Connections between far-right political views and psychedelic culture very seldom come to the surface, and sometimes possible associations can be hard to decipher. In Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows, Alan Piper discusses the links between the “Radical Traditionalist” journal TYR and Counter-Currents Publishing, which, among other things, publishes literature by the likes of “Nazi Hindu” Savitri Devi. The publisher has also released books by Collin Cleary, who is a long-standing contributor to TYR. Counter-Currents is run by Greg Johnson, an American writer and editor with far-right views. Besides having a fascination for Nazi culture, he is a big fan of psychedelic philosopher Alan Watts, whom he ranks as one of his favourite writers. It should be noted though that Johnson is not a psychonaut, which Piper fails to mention. Still, most readers of Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows will probably get the impression that he is an active participant in contemporary psychedelic culture, which is not the case.

Although far from being a psychedelic journal per se, TYR have published pieces relating to psychedelics and entheogenic shamanism. Examples include articles by the noted German anthropologist Christian Rätsch and an interview with psychedelic scientist Ralph Metzner (conducted by Swedish occultural writer Carl Abrahamsson). Incidentally, TYR co-editor Michael Moynihan is married to Annabel Lee (aka Annabel Moynihan), who is a translator of books published by Inner Traditions and its imprint Park Street Press. Titles translated by Lee include LSD and the Divine Scientist and Witchcraft Medicine. She also translated the English edition of Ernst Jünger’s Visit to Godenholm, which, by the way, was reviewed by Alan Piper in Psychedelic Press UK 2015 Volume III.

While it is true that there exist links between TYR and Counter-Currents, it is important to keep in mind that the two are only loosely connected. Furthermore, one may ask if it is even relevant to discuss them in a psychedelic context. Pieces on psychedelics are few and far between in TYR, and Counter-Currents does not publish any literature on psychedelics. Hence, it is questionable if TYR and Counter-Currents merit several pages of ink in an essay that deals with the politics of psychedelics.

It should come as no surprise that TYR co-editor Michael Moynihan is highly critical of the way TYR is presented in Piper’s Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows. In an email exchange with the present writer, Moynihan sent the following comment: “[Alan Piper] claims to be shedding light on the views of the people he discusses—but whom he has never bothered to contact himself. This could have easily been done, of course, had he so wished. Actually speaking to people and asking them directly about their own views is avoided in a case like this for a reason: to do so could bring unwanted nuances to the matter, making it difficult for the author to paint things just as he wishes. Worst of all, it might then be impossible for him to assume an imaginary higher moral ground, which is the unspoken prerequisite for any ‘politically correct’ position.”[16]

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Whereas psychedelia in the 1960s was mostly linked to left-wing views, it is safe to say that today’s psychedelic movement is, at least in part, a more conservative phenomenon. To illustrate this, let us for a moment take a look at one of today’s most well-known advocates of psychedelics, namely the American comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan. At first glance, Rogan, who is also a sports commentator and a former Fear Factor host, is a somewhat unlikely figure to promote mind-expanding drugs. His podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” reaches an impressively large audience – which consists of millions of people – and several of today’s leading psychedelic scientists and researchers have appeared on his show. Given its reach, it is easy to see why they accept being interviewed by Rogan (even though the latter seems to do most of the talking).

To those who are familiar with Rogan’s political views it should come as no surprise that he endorsed the conservative politician Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential campaign. In case one is not acquainted with U.S. politics, Paul is a two-time Republican presidential candidate and is considered a libertarian as well as the intellectual godfather of the Tea Party movement. Although Paul opposes the War on Drugs, his values in general are typically conservative. For example, he is strongly against abortion and has called global warming a hoax.

Rogan’s popularity illustrates how far the psychedelic movement has detached itself from the mostly left-wing LSD counterculture of the 1960s. While, for example, the previously discussed Stephen Gaskin was a typical counterculture figure, Rogan is his very opposite. Gaskin was a long-haired and slender vegetarian acidhead who believed in, and practised, altruism and had a left-wing outlook. Rogan on the other hand is a muscular, bear hunting and DMT loving macho psychonaut with conservative views (which by the way his fans describe as “libertarian”). Furthermore, while Gaskin was a thoughtful intellectual, Rogan uses crude humour and satire. The latter does not hesitate to attack various groups and individuals with his strong views that masquerade as comedy. Rogan is no doubt a colourful character, but his scornful attitude towards certain groups and individuals makes him a far cry from the great psychedelic thinkers of the twentieth century. For example, Rogan hates veganism and has publicly voiced his contempt for vegans on several occasions. He also has a big problem with men calling themselves feminists, which provoked him to utter the following: “If you’re a man and you call yourself a feminist I hope you choke to death on vegan pizza…”[17] Even though these kinds of comments are obviously meant to provoke as well as entertain, they also reveal much of Rogan’s conservative and narrow-minded outlook, which runs counter to many of the characters in the history of psychedelia, not least the legendary psychedelic bard Terence McKenna, who Rogan is said to be deeply influenced by.[18] Incidentally, McKenna had no problem of using the dreaded feminist label on himself: “I’m a feminist because I think mankind is headed for suicide if we don’t return to a more intense expression of the feminine.”[19]

Another character in psychedelic culture to be associated with libertarianism is Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007). But the libertarianism of Wilson had little to do with the libertarian conservatism of Ron Paul. In fact, Wilson leaned towards anarchism and once stated that, “I sometimes call myself a libertarian but that’s only because most people don’t know what anarchist means.”[20] Using humour and wit, Wilson often discussed politics and many of his quotes continue to be shared on social media. The writer also took interest in linguistics and was fascinated by E-Prime, an innovative but sadly forgotten dialect of English that eliminates all forms of the verb “to be.” One of his greatest contributions to psychedelic culture is of course The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Co-written with Robert Shea, the book remains a classic in the field of psychedelic fiction literature.

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Although the LSD counterculture gave birth to many great things, it also had a few bastard children. The Manson Family is probably the most well-known. Since their activities have been dealt with extensively in various books, documentaries and articles, the group will not be discussed in this piece. Instead, let us for a moment take a look at the radical left-wing group the Weather Underground aka the Weathermen. The Weather Underground’s goal was a classless world. They aimed at destroying U.S. imperialism and implement world communism, and in 1970 they issued a “Declaration of a State of War” against the U.S. government. That same year, using money from “acid church” The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the Weather Underground famously helped Timothy Leary escape from prison.

In the early to mid seventies the Weathermen, which may be described as the world’s first psychedelic terrorist organisation, launched a bombing campaign targeted at government buildings and banks. They opposed the Vietnam war and the bombing of the State Department was done in response to the escalation in Vietnam. The group regarded Charles Manson as a heroic street fighter, and Bernardine Dohrn, one of the leaders of the Weather underground, exclaimed the following about the Manson Family: “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!”Moreover, in an act of utter tastelessness the Weather Underground proclaimed 1970 “the Year of the Fork” in Manson’s honour.[21]

In the seventies the Weathermen, the world’s first psychedelic terrorist organisation, launched a bombing campaign.

Besides radical left-wing politics, the group was heavily into LSD, which was viewed as inherently revolutionary. The ingestion of acid also functioned as a rudimentary security check. Regarded as a truth drug, the Weather Underground believed they could weed out suspected informants by putting them through an acid test. But why did The Weather Underground become terrorists and not peaceful hippies? After all, they were heavy users of a substance that many believed would lead to peace and love. In their book Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain offer the following explanation: “While the Weathermen are an extreme case, the degree to which acid accentuated their militant tendencies underscores an essential truth about the drug: LSD does not make people more or less political; rather, it reinforces and magnifies what’s already in their heads.”[22]

Another terrorist group that is linked to psychedelics is the Japanese sect Aum Shinrikyo (“Supreme Truth”), who was behind the 1995 subway attack in Tokyo. Whereas the Weather Underground turned to explosives, Aum Shinrikyo used the highly toxic nerve agent sarin. During rush-hour one day, they released the nerve gas on several lines of the Tokyo subway, leaving 13 people dead. According to a 2015 article in The Huffington Post, a majority of the surviving victims say they still have vision problems and fatigue.[23]

In addition to manufacturing chemical weapons, the sect produced their own LSD.

Started by Shoko Asahara in 1984, Aum Shinrikyo was estimated to have 40 000 members in Japan and Russia. The sect amassed considerable wealth, and many of its members held degrees from some of Japan’s leading universities. Aum Shinrikyo was a syncretic belief system that drew upon elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, the Book of Revelation, yoga, and the writings of Nostradamus. Asahara, who declared himself Christ, outlined a doomsday prophesy, which included a third World War started by the United States. Naturally, this would mean the end of humanity, except for the few who joined the sect. Aum Shinrikyo’s initiation rituals often involved the use of LSD. Religious practises were extremely ascetic, during which members were reportedly hung upside down or received shock therapy. In addition to manufacturing chemical weapons, the sect produced their own LSD. The drug was systematically made by Masami Tsuchiya, the head of Aum Shinrikyo’s “chemical team,” for use on their members, as well as for sale to others.[24] Tsuchiya, who had a master’s degree in chemistry from Tsukuba University, also manufactured mescaline for the sect.[25]

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In Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows, Piper questions the sainthood status that has been given Albert Hofmann. The impulse to venerate the Swiss scientist is easy to understand. Not least since many people in the psychedelic community are still deeply grateful towards Hofmann and his work. However, Piper’s attempt at balancing the image of “Saint Albert” is important, and serves as a reminder that Hofmann was a mere human being like the rest of us. Furthermore, Piper’s monograph features Hofmann on the cover. But the Swiss scientist is just one of several characters that are discussed in the essay. This is also reflected in its subtitle: Ernst Jünger, Albert Hofmann and the Politics of Psychedelics. Perhaps the decision to put Hofmann on the cover was made for commercial reasons. Given the small market for literature on psychedelics, this decision is understandable.

One of the central figures in Piper’s essay is German author Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), whom Piper presents as a conservative figure with a dubious background. Incidentally, just before I came across Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows I had recently reread Jünger’s Annäherungen: Drogen und Rausch (“Approaches: Drugs and Intoxication”), which came out in my native language Swedish in 1978. (Strangely, the book has never been translated into English.) When I first read Annäherungen many years ago I was immediately captivated by it. Here was a writer – a psychonaut – in his senior years who freely and intelligently discussed his experiences with various substances, including mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, cannabis, opium and ether. Having grown up in a culture where the ideological straitjacket known as “zero tolerance” was, and still is, a political goal among all established political parties, I found Jünger’s book incredibly refreshing. And I regarded the book as a great inspiration. Little did I know that the German author was, at least to some, considered a controversial figure. This was something I discovered much later. Needless to say, this information did not alter my positive experience of reading Annäherungen.

Naturally, the world literature is filled with numerous controversial writers, and it would be a mistake to avoid reading their works simply because one does not share their political views. This is not to say that critical investigations such as Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows do not have any value. On the contrary, such works may lead to fascinating and rewarding discussions, and had I not read Piper’s iconoclastic essay this article would not have come to fruition.

By Henrik Dahl

This article was originally published in Psychedelic Press Volume XV (2016).

Henrik Dahl is a journalist and critic specialising in psychedelic culture and art.

Featured image: Protesters and military police at the 1967 anti-Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon (photographer unknown).